You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
